Dear, wonderful, beautiful people,
On March 14, I asked for your help. I wanted to raise funds for colleagues in financial distress.
WIthin a day, we were online. Within two hours, we made our first goal. Dutch Emergency Fund exceeded all expectations. Because of you.
Three amazing organisations wanted to cooperate with our spontaneous initiative, to ensure colleagues could easily apply for funds. That takes a lot of trust and they gave it to us.
After two weeks, we reached the milestone of raising €12.000. That's ten times as much as we originally hoped for! Your generosity made it possible for us to work together with more organisations for distribution. It also enabled us to make a large donation to the sex worker emergency fund of Liberty in Den Haag.
Now, over 300 donors have raised €19.235! Thank you so much, we never even dared to dream this big! Thanks to your donations, promo and help we've already distributed over 400 emergency fees amongst colleagues! Wow!
Meanwhile, the world is changing. Our national DEF fundraiser is offline for the moment. That way, we can take a moment to evaluate our work so far and be smart about the next step. We'll publish a financial report online of our work in March and April.
The crisis is here already
Most sex workers in the Netherlands will not receive financial support during the pandemic, although it is not allowed to do sex work right now. This already has a dire impact on our communities.
I have colleagues who cannot feed their children right now. I have colleagues who keep working out of financial need. We need to take increasingly serious risks to stay alive.
I have colleagues who can't ask for help out of fear of deportation. I have colleagues who don't have access to any financial support and are now homeless.
Police is strictly enforcing the increased criminalisation of sex work. If you work in order to be able to eat, you can be arrested, fined, kicked out of your house, and deported.
As though the situation isn't dire enough, our government aims to launch the Law Regulation Sex Work (Wet Regulatie Sekswerk) as soon as possible. This law will make criminals out of many sex workers and their families. The suffering we see now, will only become greater.
It is difficult to stay optimistic in this dark time. The only thing we can do, is help out whenever possible.
For now, I want to thank you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your solidarity and practical support mean more than I can properly put in words. Thank you.
- Hella